Swedish artist Mikael Lind, is well known in the ambient scene for his works for Morr Music, Time Released Sound or more recently Polar Seas Recordings. 'Contingencies' is his first release on Archives, after an appearance on our last compilation 'Solstice'. The pieces on the album are part of his experimentation on live improvisations with different pianos.

Adrift is Robert Farrugia's 7th album, and his third release on the Archives imprint. The album is a departure from his previous electroacoustic works to a more minimalistic approach in the vein of Geotic (Baths) and Helios. It touchingly discusses the feelings of uncertainty and optimistic doubt that come with maturation and onset adulthood. The fifth track, Daylight Saving, was composed alongside Robert's brother, Matthew, to whom the album is dedicated to.

‘Purity’ is an ode to innocence, a gentle reminder of times left behind, an attempt to find new ways to feel the same feelings as felt long ago. Full of lucid nostalgia, this album conveys love, tenderness and carelessness that many of us lack.

This album has its story. I recorded it in August, right after my old computer broke down. I lost all the records which were supposed to be the actual album. Even though I managed to rescue some of the files and finish the work, the losses were too noticeable. The album sounded like a hollow, unnatural version of itself. This didn’t make me give up. I started a completely new album - ‘Purity’. With a different mindset and a different set of tools I was able to compose these eight pieces in a month of rapid yet dedicated work.

Hirotaka Shirotsubaki is from a small town in Kobe. He began his career in 2011. Taking inspiration from the natural surroundings in the suburbs where he grew up, his early music’s major themes were the city and nature. However, his later music tends towards the impersonal, allowing each listener to fit the sounds into the spaces of his or her life, attempting to link the ideas of memory and recollection into his music.

The heart comes to rest the wind settles down the longing begins to stir the wind begins to move enfolding each branch and limb stroking each leaf and hair setting in motion her swing remnant from a distant glimmer of a childhood that continues on forever ... In loving memory of Brian Young

Spanish composer Pepo Galán lands on the exquisite imprint Archives with a follow-up to the acclaimed Human Values Disappear.This time, the artist steps out of his comfort zone to create a record that melts the boundaries of ambient music, challenging our preconceived notion of how a drone record should sound. Part of the charm of Strange Parentheses lies in its seamless blend of genres, quickly shifting from early day Kranky sounds (Dead fish on the shore, In a Straight Line) to more glitch-inspired pieces (High Seas Tempest, Almost Alone in this Life). However, the biggest strength - and surprise - of the album lies in its delicate use of vocals. For this endeavour, Pepo recruited the talented German choreographer Sita Ostheimer, who brings her impressive vocal range to three of the album’s tracks. Sita’s symbiotic performance adds a newfound intensity to the mix, echoing the emotional resonance of artists like Grouper or Julianna Barwick. These refined sounds become palpable in the album’s centerpiece, S a m o a, a song that starts off with a delicate Sonic Pieces-inspired piano, gradually evolving into a soul-crushing ballad. Here, Pepo builds a wall of guitar and string sounds around Sita’s vocals, transporting us to a state of mind that is equal parts melancholic and blissful. This gravitational pull between darkness and hope acts as a guiding light throughout the rest of the album, eventually landing on a high note with the tear-jerking sounds of U Broke Me. By the time the pitched-down vocals fade away, it is safe to assume that Pepo Galán has produced another exquisite record, one that rivals the heights reached by Human Values Disappear, confirming him as one of the most exciting artists to watch in our modern ambient landscape.

"You'll Be Fine." is the first release on Archives of german producer Sven Laux. Well known for his vast discography, including releases on Archipel, Whitelabrecs and Dronarivm. A perfect mix between ambient and modern classical music, with a beautiful palette of sounds. From ambient lines to strings and piano keys, with his refined cinematic style.

"Touch is a reciprocal action, a gesture of exchange with the world…walking is not the action by which one arrives at knowledge; it is itself the means of knowing."

"Means of Knowing" is an exchange with the world, an effort to know it and ourselves more deeply. Like a long walk on a favorite path and the introspection and observation that such a journey inspires, it is an album full of constantly evolving interplay between natural and imagined sound sources. Tactile sounds from the physical world combine with textured, processed synthesis to evoke the depth of experience available to us every day.

"'The Grey Ghost of Morning' is an experimental/ambient record which was written in a seven week period, during April-June 2017. It is a personal body of work, highly influenced by my having to come back to the UK and be away from my fiancée in the USA during that time. My sleep patterns, altered from the time-difference, never truly got back to normal. I was haunted by insomnia and was writing and recording well into the early hours of morning. By this time, the hazy morning light had already began to stream into my room. Being that I'm in Wales, more often than not, this light was accompanied by a thick, languid grey mist, rolling-in over the Preseli Mountains, near to where I live. This regular occurrence determined the title of the album.

The Grey Ghost of Morning is a body of ghostly soundscapes and melancholy mind-states. The majority of the album was created using different guitars and guitar-playing techniques. I used Acoustic, Classical/Nylon-strung Electro-Acoustic, Electric, Bass, Lap-Steel and 12-string Electro-Acoustic guitars across the album. You can hear the varying techniques used, from simple sustained notes and fingerpicking to bowed guitar. Using a violin-bow on the Electric Bass guitar yielded some very interesting results and allowed me to create the deeper more elongated soundscapes on the record. (Particularly apparent on the track 'Phantasm'.) After recording the guitars, I often sampled and resampled them to create the final pieces. There are no synths on this record. The guitar-soundscapes are juxtaposed with distant vocals, field-recordings, old tape recordings (sampled and resampled from my analogue 4-track tape days) and layered-multi-fx, particularly 'spring-reverb' and tape-delays (created live using guitar pedals and then processed through various software fx plugins). There is a generous dose of 'vinyl-crackle' across the album, to suggest the worn-out, frazzled and somewhat warped state of mind I was in whilst creating it.

This work is intended to reflect the sensation of being away from the person you love. Being tormented by loneliness, lack of sleep, the unwanted break of day; the notion that sleep will be next to impossible, especially in an empty bed. The track titles suggest my mind-state and the process of trying to distract myself from the intense sensation of longing, wanting to be back with her.

When you're forced into being away from the person you love, for long periods of time, distraction is key. Therefore, regardless of the melancholy nature of the record, it was indeed a welcome distraction and helped me to cope with the separation."